Construction of tennis courts



Patented May 17, 1927.

UNITED STATES JEPHTHAH NEA'I'H, F TAINES, ENGLAND;

CONSTRUCTION OI TENNIS COURTS. I

No Drawing. Application filed September 8,1925, Serial No. 55,412, and in Great Britain November 8, 1924.

This invention relates to the'construction of tennis courts. More particularly, it re lates to the construction of a tormof hard court possessing many of the features of the a usual clay court.

Although hard courts, as now built. have the advanta e of not requiring frequent rolling and re ressing, they nevertheless have the serious disadvantage of lacking the re siliency of clay courts. Various materials have been suggested for hard courts, including the use of common coal tar and asphaltum with' pulverized materials of various forms. Coal tar and asphaltum, however,

when mixed. with pulverized materials, form a practically non-porous surface which after a rain dries only by slow evaporation, and which in consequence is uite slip ery. In dry weather, the surface comes ard and brittle and unyielding, and is very tirinp; to the feet of tennis players because of its ack of resiliency.

To revent such difiiculties and to produce a he surfaced court possessing the advanil tages of a clay court, I employ a construction that is without the objectionable features formed in the use of coal tar or asphaltum. Instead of an impervious nonporous surface, I provide a porous surface through which rain and other moisture may easily percolate. As a result, the court does not become sli pery and is fit for play after a wetting muc sooner than if made of other materials. Furthermore, such a mixture as I em loy possesses a resiliency which upproac es that of a clay court, and which as a consequence is not as fatiguing as the usual form of hard court.

According to this invention water-gas tar is boiled and used as a binder for granulated or pulverized material such as spent oxide from gas purifiers, the mixture while hot, being spread over a foundation of' clinker and coke breeze, a thin layer of brickdust or sand bein then laid over'the mixture and rolled unti a hard firm surface is produced. The lines of the court can be marked with reinforced cement concrete.

In an example of the practical application of this invention, tar produced in water-gas making apparatus may be boiled and run into a receptacle containing spent oxide from gas purifiers in the proportions of 1 gallon of tar to 4 cwts. of spent oxide and stirred to mix theingredients. The round being levelled and the clinker and coke breeze being s road thereon to a depth of 4 inches, doub e lines of wood are laid and filled in with cement, preferably reinforced by an iron bar running centrall of each a pair of wood stri s, the cement a hering to the clinker and co e breeze foundation. After the cement has set, the wood can be removed and the s aces between the cement lines tilled with t e tar and oxide mixture on to a depth of 1 inch, about 140 lbs. er square yard of the mixture being applie at a temperature of about degrees ahrenbelt, and finally about 12 lbs. "of brickdust or sand per square yard sprinkled over the 70 top of the mixture. The court is then rolled until a hard firm surface is produced, when it is ready for immediate use, and does not require frequent rolling-or re-dressing; its surface althou h diistless is porous, so that 76 rain will uickly drain off it, and is resilient and not i pe ,so that it is not so fatiguing to t e p ayers as are the usual hard courts. a

Ordinary coal gas tar and bituminous mixso tures have previously beenused as binders for pulverized or granulated paving material, but the water-gas tar which I propose to use is a different substance and is not obtained from coal as. It is composed of as light oils, creosote 01 s, naphthalene and resi ual matters, and compared with coal as tar it is of less density and less affectedfin chan es of temperature. It is obtained by the ollowing process Gas oil is distilled from crude petroleum, heated to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and sprayedinto a vessel called a carbureter to enrich --blue water gas contained therein. The enriched water gas is then passed from the carbuas reter to the gas washer, condenser, and tar extractor, in which latter the water gas tar. is deposited. p

The spent oxide herein mentioned is also a by-product of gas manufacture well known to gas en ineers. This oxide which is used for absor ing sulphuretted hydro en from gas is a hog ore rich in oxide 0 iron; it ma contain for example 50 or 70 er cent of ydrated oxide of iron; it is p aced in vessels called -purifiers'through which gas ispassed, and when the oxide contains say- 40 or 50 per cent of sulphuretted hydrogen,

it is removed and replaced by fresh oxide, 2. The construction of a tennis court of a the oxide removed being called spent foundation of clinker and coke breeze, a 10 oxide. la er of a mixture of boiled water-gas tar WhatI claim and desire to secure by'Letwith a material such as spent oxide from 5 ters' Patent of the United States is gas .purifiers, and a thin upper layer of dry 1. The construction of a tenniseourt of a finely divided material such as brickdust or mixture of boiled water-gas tar and spent sand.

Y oxide from gas purifiers. J EPHTHAH NEATH. 

